Close Encounters of the sparkly but nerdy kind....

When I think back on all the people I have met over the years I realize I have actually met quite a few local 'celebs'. Now to those who don't know Western Australia mainly the Perth area this will seem like not much at all. Especially to all my American relatives, I know it's not quite the same as meeting the big stars over there but for us Perthies it's kind of an OMG moment because although we know these celebs live locally you just never expect to run into them.

My first encounter was while I was shopping at our local Woolworths Grocery Store and I was pushing my trolley along minding my own business when a lady and I both wanted to go in opposite directions but were coming at each other front on. So I moved aside and let the lady through, though as I'm moving I'm thinking to myself, 'man you look familiar.' The lady thanked me for moving and we smiled at each other and went on our way and then it clicked where I had seen her. It was Jenny Seaton!!! And I'm thinking to myself 'Oh my GOD I just met Jenny Seaton! Jenny Seaton who I just watched on t.v this morning! Jenny Seaton is shopping at Mirrabooka Square!!! She can shop anywhere!! But I just met Jenny Seaton!!' Now for those of you who don't understand my surprise of Jenny Seaton one of our local t.v presenters shopping at Mirrabooka Square it's like this, Mirrabooka is not exactly an affluent area, it's quite rough and quite a lot of crime and here she was obviously straight from the set and doing her shopping. I was 18 at the time and totally star struck but have to say in the brief meeting we had she is a lovely person.

My second encounter was with Bruce Samazan. For those of you who remember he was on Neighbours, an Aussie soap. So this time I was at a christmas function for kids with disabilities (Luke has Autism) with my ex-husband and all our kids when they were very young and I spotted Bruce not knowing he would be there. I said to my ex-husband, 'hey that's Bruce Samazan, what's he doing here?' to which David replied, 'obviously supporting the kids.' hmmm I thought to myself as at that time I thought Bruce was quite cute. I said to David, 'I want to go meet him but what should I say?' obviously I didn't want to look like a star struck idiot!! Not so easy to do in my family hehehe... David then said 'why don't you just go say hi.' So I thought about it and told him I'd be back in a minute. So I walked over to him and said 'Hi I'm just wondering what time Father Christmas starts handing out the presents.' Can you believe that was the best I could come up with!? Bruce nicely replied, 'in about half an hour and I hope you and your family have fun today.' I thanked him and then went back to David and the kids in total disbelief and thinking I can't believe that's all I could think of to say to him and why oh why didn't I ask him for his autograph or a photo!!! What was I thinking!! But did I really want to look like a crazed fan who thought he was cute?? I don't think so. Now I look back it was quite funny that I watched him on t.v every night and all I could ask him was what time Father Christmas handed out the presents...But I have to say he was very nice and friendly.

So encounter number three happened quite some years back after David and I had split and I was seeing Rick. Rick got it into his head we should go to Cottesloe for lunch one afternoon, and for anyone who doesn't know Perth, Cottesloe is an affluent yuppy area and I'm from the wrong side of town you could almost say hehehehe.....I'm from BALGA!! Definitely not affluent or yuppy side of town....Balga's the lock your doors and don't look anyone in the eye side of town....lol. Any way we had lunch and afterwards we were walking down the street on a nice summer day when I saw this lady coming towards me (no it wasn't Jenny Seaton again hehe) and I'm thinking to myself, 'you look so familiar where have I seen you.' And as we pass each other we give each other a friendly good afternoon smile and kept walking and then it hits me...AGAIN....It was Susanna Carr!!!! Susanna Carr has been Perth's local anchor woman for channel 7 news for quite some years now. So as she passes me I turn to Rick and say, 'OH MY GOD that was Susanna Carr!!'.. keeping in mind she's barely passed us. Rick turns to me and says, 'Do you have to be so loud about it?' and I'm like, 'But that was Susanna Carr, oh my god I can't believe I just got smiled at by Susanna Carr.' Well, Rick just put his head in his hand and shook it until we were out of sight but I was quite chuffed I'd just spotted Susanna Carr who tells me the news every night at 6pm.

My third encounter was with Todd Johnston who was lead singer of a local band called V-Kapri and my older sister Melissa was in love with him when we were in high school and I remember her being so excited because his band played at her high school one year. Well I was doing some work experience in a local hair and retail salon when Todd walked in and straight away I recognized him as he now does the weather on another local news channel. I had just finished serving a customer and he came straight up to me and asked if we had any bobby pins as his daughter needed them for dance class. He is very friendly and down to earth and also quite short for a guy but I overlooked that hehe. I helped him find what he was looking for and the whole time I'm thinking, 'I'm talking to Todd Johnston...argh!!! Mel will be so jealous..' Any way he paid for what he needed and was on his way only to be back about half an hour later with his wife in tow because he'd bought the wrong thing hehehe, never send a man to by girl things. His wife was nice but nowhere near as down to earth as Todd and all the while I'm helping his wife find the right clips she needed he is just chatting away to me and asking if we were busy and what I had planned for the weekend. He's just such a nice person, I think he could see his wife was getting a little demanding so was be extra friendly to counteract her fussiness. I finally served Todd and his wife for a second time and as they were leaving he gave me the biggest smile and told me to  have a great weekend. That was an encounter I won't forget.

Well my last encounter was only a few years back and very few people know him but I remember him from when I was about 6 years old and onwards. I'd been living in Ballajura for a few years when I was walking into my local shopping center and saw an elderly gentleman that looked familiar to me but I couldn't place his name. However he saw me looking at him and gave a smile so I smiled back at him politely and kept on my way do do my shopping. While pushing the trolley around I came across the same gentleman who was obviously looking for something and saw me again and asked me what isle the tomato sauce was in. I pointed him in the right direction and he thanked me and said have a lovely day to which I wished him the same. For days after I met him it was bugging me that I couldn't think who this man was. A few months later I was back down at the same shopping center only this time with a friend who had taken me shopping as my car was being serviced. As we were walking into the shop I spotted the same man again and said to my friend Silvana, 'I know that man from somewhere but I don't know where.' When Silvana looked at the man she said to me, 'his name is Peter, one of the brothers from the hall is studying the bible with him.' (we are Jehovah's witnesses so hence the bible study) And again it clicked to where I'd seen him as soon as she said his name. His name is Peter Dean and he used to help host a local children's t.v show here in W.A called 'Fat Cat's Fun Time Show'. Me and my sisters loved it and we watched it every Saturday morning as soon as we got out of bed. I so wanted to go up to Peter Dean and say 'I used to watch you on t.v when I was a little girl,' but again I didn't want to seem like an absolute crazed maniac at 32 years of age so I just smiled at him and let it go. However I did tell Silvana I used to watch him on t.v but unless you grow up here in W.A and watch the local channels, people just don't get it. Chris came over from New South Wales when he was 8 and he doesn't remember Fat Cat's Fun Time Show at all. I saw Peter Dean several more times at the local shopping center before I left the city and moved to the country. He is a lovely man who occasionally needs help finding his grocery items but I enjoyed helping him a few more times after that first meeting and it took all I had not to blurt out' I used to love watching you on t.v with sunny sandgroper'.....trust me all the west aussies will know what a sunny sandgroper is....

So these are my sparkly encounters and as you can see they may not be world famous but to us locals in W.A it is exciting when you run into them on the street or at work but maybe that's just me and my nerdy way of reacting when I see a local celeb. Who knows how I'd be if I bumped into someone really famous.....not tactful I'm sure of that much hehehe.

Fun and Work

The clouds are grey today but the trees are still, I think they might be taking a rest before the rain comes that we're supposed to have today. It's early, barely seven o'clock and outside everything is peaceful,quiet and calm  though the street will awaken shortly with everyone leaving their houses and going to work or taking the kids out for the day while the holidays are still going. I will be busy myself in a short while after running an errand in town then watching my beautiful niece and nephew for an hour while I paint Bec and Eva's playroom. The house is so quiet without Bec here, she usually has me run off my feet from the minute she gets up in the morning. Chris has already left for work and though friends and family say I should stay in bed I can't help but get up with him and organize his lunch and seeing him off, I know he's home later in the day but I miss him when he's gone.

Saturday we took the girls to Meelup Beach, my most favorite beach in the world where the water is always blue no matter what the weather is like. It was a spur of the moment decision to go as we were bored at home and itching to get out, the weather actually wasn't that great but we thought what the heck if it's horrible down there we'll come home. Horrible it was not, the sun was out and reasonably warm even though the sky was still a bit grey. The girls literally took off down to the water without me or Chris, they were so excited to be down there I don't think they even really stopped to see where we were. Eva was jumping over waves before we knew it and while Bec was a little hesitant to go near the water she ended up the wettest by the time we finished. To top off the day, just as we were leaving a guy said to me 'there's whales out there.' At first I couldn't see them, how ridiculous is that, it's a whale and I couldn't see it.....I'm still laughing about that. But they sure were there and they were playing and blowing water and flicking their tales in the air, it was amazing and the girls thought it was the best thing they had ever seen and I have to agree with them. I've been going to Meelup Beach since my family used to come to Busselton for holidays in my teens and this is the first time I've ever seen whales there.We stayed watching until we couldn't see them any more even though Eva swore she could still see them and Bec said she wanted to play with the wheals....(whales) got to love the way she pronounces things it's such a crack up. In the end it was a good idea to just get out of the house and go for a drive, now we all have the memory of a fun afternoon and being able to see the most graceful animals in water playing around.

Meelup Beach, even on a cloudy day it is still beautiful and one of my favorite places to be.

So now it's the afternoon and I'm completely knackered after painting the play room, mowing the lawn and putting the table to the new outdoor setting together. My thumbs hurt from holding the paint roller but the colour for the play room is beautiful, I think it's the nicest shade of blue I have ever seen. My ceilings are quite high and I'm quite short so it was a bit of a mission reaching those high spots but I managed it reasonably well and I think my calf muscles got a good work out with all that over reaching. The lawn looks good too now that it's done properly, I just can't wait to pick up the new edger Friday as I'm losing my footpath to the lawn and I'm losing my back to the lawn mower and the car after washing it at the car wash this morning but man I love that place, it's so easy to get the car so clean and sparkling there...lol. Thank goodness for hot showers  is all I can say, amazing how a hot shower always makes you feel better.

Well so far this week we've had fun and plenty of work but it's easy to make the work fun if you try. Today I've had the radio going all day while painting and mowing the lawn and even when I took the car to the car wash I had the radio going. I love my music, especially my country music so I tend to have it going while I work as I find time goes faster when singing along to my favourite songs. At the moment I've been listening to Sugarland and Carrie Underwoods new cd's and I have to say I'm in love with her song 'Look At Me'. For anyone who's married and still totally in love with your partner listen to this song and you'll just love it I'm sure....and even for all the single girls out there as I was for so many years just listen to it because it is a beautiful song. For something a little more fun and funky listen to Sugarlands 'Stuck Like Glue' it's just brilliant and makes you want to sing and dance along to it, so enjoy and let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iiU5_guzCo Carrie Underwood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iDPw_qjhtM&ob=av2e Sugarland

Changing Seasons

What is it about spring that makes you want to get things done? Is it the warmth of the sun after so many months of cold mornings and rainy days? Well whatever it is I know that when the sun is shining warmly like it has been the last couple of days it feels good on the skin and makes me want to be outdoors as much as possible whether working in the garden, tidying up or getting ready for a bbq, I love being outside in the sun. I love the warm weather but not the really hot weather, it must be something as you get older not liking the hot weather or maybe it's just me and Chris getting old....hehe... When we're kids we don't seem to notice the heat as we're too busy playing and swimming to notice and now we find the heat makes life uncomfortable while our kids are running around under sprinklers or swimming down the beach not even noticing how hot it is..... Spring is also when things really start to come alive in my garden and then I can see just how well my green thumb is doing. All my veges are doing amazingly well considering I've never grown most of them before. The tomatoes are popping up everywhere, parsley and basil are growing profusely, leeks are finally getting bigger and  the capsicum is coming along nicely just to mention a few. I sometimes think I'm becoming obsessed with my plants as I check them every day to see the progress they're making and if they need watering, anyone would think I was looking after a new baby but it's hard not to obsess after years of nothing growing and now everything is doing really well. Even the strawberries which I've never been able to grow are growing rapidly and getting bigger every day, however we haven't been able to eat a single strawberry yet and not because they're rotting or dying or bugs are eating them it's because my crazy dog Lady keeps eating them as soon as they're ripe enough. At first I couldn't figure out how or why they were disappearing and then my neighbour tells me dogs LOVE strawberries, so out of the ground they came and into hanging baskets and pots, safe and out of the way of Lady. It's also been a mission keeping Lady and Molly (our other dog) out of the vege garden and from trampling on everything....we really need to screen it off somehow.

I will admit despite not liking the heat I am looking forward to summer very much this year and spending plenty of time at the beach with Chris and the girls. We only live five minutes from the beach so it's nice to be able to go down there at the end of the day and just take a walk or have a late afternoon swim and enjoy the last of the sun for the day. Summer time in Busselton is nice and while it does get hot the sea breeze is always in early so the day finishes with a beautiful cool evening and a nice cold drink with Chris. I'm also looking forward to many bbq dinners cooked on the new barbie and eaten around the table outside. Dining outside is something I love to do in nice weather as it just feels more natural and relaxing than being in the house which I've worked in all day. The best part of eating outside with the family is relaxing afterwards and watching the kids play with each other and the dogs. So many summer nights to look forward to and I can't wait for them to start. Another thing I love about summer is the way cooking changes from hot meals that are heavy and comfort food to light fresh salads and chicken or steak, whatever takes your fancy. As soon as spring starts cooking becomes different in my house and I enjoy the different smells that take over from more traditional winter dinners. This is when I pull out my cooking journal and start rifling through my recipes and even inventing a few new ones along the way and of course I just love using all that fresh produce that's been growing in my garden.